Vintage photos from squareamerica.com

Posted by Xeni Jardin, November 27, 2007 4:11 PM | permalink

"Square America" offers a lovely archive of old snapshots and vernacular photography -- here are two recently uploaded galleries. Above, one still from a set of several dozen photos of women on television in 1957:

Encrusted with 50 year old dust and emulsion the photos of women from melodramas and late-night talk shows are not only a record of one person's peculiar obsession but also a virtual catalog of the kind of roles women played in the popular entertainment of the era.

And below, "The Party," nearly 50 photos from a late '60s/early '70s biracial/bisexual bacchanal. Or maybe it's a lost American Apparel ad. (mild NSFW, a couple of blurry topless ladies in there).

(Thanks, Clayton Cubitt!)

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Discussion

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#1 posted by Miss Cellania

, November 27, 2007 4:21 PM

The above picture looks more like 1977 than 1957.

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#2 posted by Miss Cellania

, November 27, 2007 4:22 PM

Oops, the pictures switched since I posted a comment!

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#3 posted by soni , November 27, 2007 4:40 PM

Wow. That's some party. No wonder everyone who lived through the 70's looks so damned tired.

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#4 posted by Xeni Jardin

, November 27, 2007 4:56 PM

They could both use LOLspeak captions...

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#5 posted by cookie , November 27, 2007 5:23 PM

Cool site. I blogged about this just a few days ago...
http://bedazzled.blogs.com/bedazzled/2007/11/photos-of-women.html
Not often I get to scoop Boing-Boing :)

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#6 posted by Antinous , November 27, 2007 8:19 PM

The Party probably isn't a statistically significant sampling, but it sure looks like those pictures were taken before America got fat.

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#7 posted by stovis , November 27, 2007 8:19 PM

Back in the days when muff was not an endangered species.

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#8 posted by DeWynken , November 27, 2007 9:47 PM

MOM?!!

DAD?!!!!

WTF!

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#9 posted by morbius , November 27, 2007 11:31 PM

Vernacular photography? Love it.

Another site for wonderful images of times gone by: http://www.shorpy.com/

All this wonderful nitrate, Ektochrome and 126 goodness. Can't get enough of it.

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#10 posted by jbang , November 28, 2007 4:57 AM

Those photos of the 70's peeps, having an awesome time, make me wonder what they are doing now - whi they are, what their lives are like, if they have kids (dewynken, heh).

I wander what will be posted as "old" (and therefore 'safe') material in 30 - 40 years, with our very digital, camera equipped society.

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#11 posted by Halloween Jack , November 28, 2007 8:59 AM

When I was looking through the Party photos, every time I'd see one of the guys wearing women's underwear, the same thought went through my mind: future Republican politician?